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OS 406.F93

From the Hooghly to the Himalayas :being

3 1924 011 701 566

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FROM THE

HOOGHLY Z HIMALAYAS

Being an Illustrated Handbook to the
chief places of interest reached by
the Eastern Bengal State Railway.

BOMBAY :

PRINTED AT THE TIMES PRESS.

1913-

-^ ^'

PREFACE.

THIS book is intended, to serve as a guide to the more important
and, from ttie average visitor's point of view^, more interesting
places reached by the Eastern Bengal State Railway. The usual
guide-book references to hotels, details of routes and time tables are
omitted, because in India these things are constantly changing. An
inquiry at the offices of the E. B. S. R. will be found more helpful
on such matters than many pages of directions.

The source of quotations given is as a rule stated : but much
of the historical information has been derived from various volumes
of the latest edition of the Imperial Gazetteer of India.

The photographs, except where otherwise acknowledged, are
by Messrs. Johnston and Hoffman of Calcutta.

Elephant Falls, Shillong.

FROM THE

HOOGHLY TO THE HIMALAYAS.

Chapter I. — In and round Calcutta.

ci/iB5ym^ O one can stay for any length of time in Calcutta without perceiving
f(&j how important a part in the commercial and social life of the
city is played by the Eastern Bengal State Railway. It is the
line which traverses in varidus directions the rich and fertile plains
of Bengal and connects Calcutta with North and East Bengal and Assam,
and with Diamond Harbour on the Hooghly, and it is the line which
takes the tourist and the resident in Calcutta away from the heat and bustle of
metropolitan life to the most magnificent hill stations in the East. A glance at
the map will show that the system of this railway covers a wide area in an
apparently confusing network, but a little study will simplify matters and show
that there are practically three separate systems, separated by unbridged rivers : —

(t) The Standard-gauge Section, 512 miles long, south of the River
Ganges.

(2) The Northern Section, Metre-gauge, 910 miles long.

(3) The Dacca Section, 141 miles long, also Metre Gauge. There are

also two short branches on the 2 feet 6 inches gauge : — Ranaghat
to Krishnager, 20 miles; and Teesta to Kurigram, 15 miles.

The three systems together are now administered as one by an Agent, who
is under the orders of the Railway Board, and, as the name shows, the railway is
financed as a State Railway. The details of its history (see Appendix) show how
a number of private companies have gradually been absorbed in this one system,
and present to students of railway problems in India a capital example of what
private enterprise has done for the development of the country. The passenger
on any one of the Eastern Bengal State Railway's lines will soon discover that the
system is as good as any other in India, so far as comfort is concerned, and better

than many. The carriages are of the standard Indian construction, fitted with
electric lights and fans, with the exception of the standard-gauge Darjeeling Mail
which is one of the few corridor trains running in India — an innovation which
unfortunately is not likely long to survive the prejudice and hostility of the travel-
ling public in India. If it be added that the catering arrangements at all the
stations where a halt is made for meals are good, the traveller can set forth on his
journey with the knowledge that he will be as comfortable as it is possible to be
in a railwa,y journey through a land where the heat and the dust are often a
grievous trial to the flesh and to the spirit. But one cannot start on the way to
the "delectable mountains '' without first seeing something of Calcutta. If it is

Engines, Old and New.

The illustration shows the most up-to-date engine in use on the E. B. S. R. together with one of the
earliest engines built for that line which is now running.

no longer the Capital of India, Calcutta is still its most important town, the largest
in size and in trade, the richest in historical associations so far as the British are
concerned ; and it has more of the characteristics of a European capital, more of
the amenities of urban life than any other town in India. As to its size, the result
of the latest census "is to show that the total population of Calcutta and the
suburbs, i.e., the suburban municipalities of Cossipur-Chitpur, Maniktala, and
Garden Reach is 1,043,307, which exceeds by 62,862 that of Bombay, the second
most populous city in India. With the exception of London, no other city in the
British Empire has so many inhabitants, and it takes its place among the
twelve largest cities in the world. Calcutta proper, i.e., the area administered by
the Corporation of Calcutta with the Fort, Port, and Canals, has 896,067, and

the suburbs 147,240 inhabitants. For all practical purposes, however, the
suburbs form part of the same city, being connected with Calcutta by a continuous
line of buildings, and only differentiated by having another system of municipal
government."

The English first came to Bengal, as traders about the middle of the 17th
century, and soon learned that they must protect themselves in that commercial

Scene in the Calcutta Dock.

enterprise by force. Hence the despatch of an expeditionary torce in 1686 under
one Job Charnock of the English Hast India Company, who came to Sutanuti
(in the north of modern Calcutta), after a skirmish with the Mughals at Hooghly,
and formulated certain demands on the Nawab. .These were rejected by the
latter, who ordered his subordinates to drive the English out of the country.
Charnock retaliated by destroying various salt-houses and forts, but was shortly
afterwards superseded by Captain Heath, who came out from England with

instructions to occupy Chittagong. The attempt on this place failed ; but on
August 24, 1690, the English returned to Sutanuti under Charnock, at the
invitation of the Nawab, and laid the foundation of modern Calcutta. Several
reasons led to the selection of this place as the headquarters of British trade in
Bengal. The Hooghly river tapped the rich trade of the Ganges valley, and
Calcutta was situated at the highest point at which the river was navigable for
sea-going vessels ; it was moreover protected against attack by the river on the
west and by morasses on the east, and it could be defended by the guns of the
shipping. But there is an ancient fallacy that the site was chosen by chance,
being that of a mid-day halt made by Charnock, and that the town was of
fortuitous growth. This picturesque notion has been adopted by Rudyard
Kipling, who writes in the Departmental Ditties : -

Thus the mid-day halt of Charnock mere's the pity
Grew a city ;

As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,
So it spread —

Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built.
On the silt.

Palace, myre hovel — poverty and pride,
I Side by side ;

And above the packed and pestilential town,
Death looked down.

Once the settlement had started it soon developed. A local rebellion
necessitated the construction of a fort on a site extending from the modern
Fairlie place on the north to Koila Ghat street on the south, the river forming the
western and what is now Dalhousie Square the eastern boundary. Forty years
later the inhabitants started to strengthen their defences by digging an entrench-
ment (which followed the course of the modern Circular Road) as a defence
against the Maratha raiders in Bengal. Already (in 1707) the East India
Company had declared Calcutta a separate Presidency accountable only to the
Directors in London, and the Maratha scare and growing trade brought it so many
additional inhabitants that in 1752 it was said probably with exaggeration to
have a population of 40,000.

The first real set-back to the growth of Calcutta as well as the chief event
in its early history was its capture in 1756 by Siraj-ud-daula, Nawab of Bengal.
The native troops deserted and the Europeans were driven into the fort, which was
practically indefensible, as its guns were masked by the surrounding buildings.
The Governor and many of the officials made their escape to the ships, which
thereupon dropped down the river, and the garrison, under the command of Holwell

were driven to surrender. They were forced, to the number of 146, into a small
room, measuring only 18 by 14 feet, which is known in history as the Black Hole.
Here they were left for the night. It was June 20 ; the heat was intense, and the
two small grated windows were quite insufficient to give air to the closely packed
crowd, who endured terrible sufferings. When the morning came and the door
was opened, only twenty-three were found alive. The names of most of the
sufferers are preserved to this day on a monument presented to Calcutta by Lord
Curzon, and the site of the tragedy is commemorated — as also are various parts of
the old Fort — by a tablet.*

General Offices of the Eastern Bengal State Railway, Sealdah, Calcutta.

The town was recaptured by Clive and Admiral Watson early in 1757; and
after the battle of Plassey {see Chapter VI) Mir Jafar gave the English the samin-
dari of the twenty-four Parganas, as well as a free gift of the town and some ot
the adjacent villages. Heavy compensation was paid to the merchants for their
losses and from that time dates a period of uninterrupted prosperity in the history
of the town. With part of the compensation money received from the Nawab,
Gobindpur was cleared of its inhabitants and the foundations of the present fort
were laid. It was not finished until 1773, and is said to have cost two millions

* Full details of these tablets and of the theoretical reconstruction of the fort are to be
found in " Thacker's Guide to Calcutta," by the Rev. W. K. Firminger. (Thacker, Spink and Co.)

sterling, of which total a quarter was spent on protective works against the erosion
of the river. The clearing of the jungle round the fort led to the formation of the
maidan, which is to-day the pride of Calcutta. Of the subsequent improvements,
at the end of the i8th and early in the 19th centuries, many were carried out with
money raised by means of lotteries, a device that also helped in the building ot
modern Bombay and Madras. Lottery schemes were set on foot in aid even of
church building funds, and were run, as one historian says, with an earnestness
which must atone for the want of moral propriety.

It has already been said that Calcutta came into existence as a trading
town, because its position enabled merchants to tap the rich traffic of the valley of

A-u#i-i.«i#.<«!rtefM^j*Ti-»*'s^-*-o^«!**^s^ u:::3"\». rui«^.

Darjeeling Mail Train, E. B. S. R.

the Ganges. The luxurious courts of the Moghul rulers had fostered the manu-
facture at Dacca and Murshidabad of beautiful silks and muslins (described later
in this book) which were eagerly bought up in Europe. The saltpetre of Bihar
was in great demand in England for the manufacture ot gunpowder during the
French wars ; and rice, sesamum oil, cotton cloths, sugar, clarified butter, lac,
pepper, ginger, myrabolams and tussore silk were also in request. Bengal pro-
duced all these articles and Calcutta was the only seaport from which they could
be exported. The demand for Indian muslins gradually died out in Europe, while
early in the nineteenth century Lancashire began to export manufactured cotton
goods to India, and the introduction of steam power placed the local weavers at
such a disadvantage that piece-goods are now by far the largest article of import
into Bengal, while the export of silk and cotton manufactures has practically

ceased. The export of jute, on the other hand, has grown enormously since the
middle of the nineteenth century, and the production of oilseeds and tea has vastly
increased. Bengal coal is in great demand all over India, and salt and mineral
oils are largely imported. Through alWhese vicissitudes of commerce, Calcutta
has more than held its own, and the development of railways and of steamer routes
along the main waterways has greatly strengthened its position, so that it now
attracts to itself the trade of Assam as well as of Eastern Bengal and of the

HooGHLY Bridge, Calcutta.

Gangetic Valley. The foreign trade of the port in 1912-13 amounted to imports
65 crores of rupees, and exports nearly 95 crores.

Calcutta possesses many fine buildings, both public and private, of histori-
cal and architectural interest. The original Government House occupied the site of
the modern Customs Office. The erection of the present building was commenced
in 1797 at the instance of the Marquis Wellesley, who urged that " India should
be governed from a palace, not from a counting-house." It was completed in
about seven years, at a cost of 13 lakhs, the design being partly based on that of

Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, the structure consisting of four great wings running
to each point of the compass from a central pile approached by a magnificent flight
of steps on the north. The Grand Hall is an exceptionally fine chamber and the
building also contains the Council Chamber in which the Supreme Legislature
held its sittings. Various articles of furniture and trophies recall the perilous early
days of the Company, having been captured from European or native powers.
The two fine full-length portraits of Louis le Bien Aime and his Queen, together
with the chandeliers and twelve busts of the Caesars in the aisles of the Marble
Hall, are said to have been taken from a French ship. It is now the residence of
the Governor of Bengal. Belvedere, in Alipore, formerly the official residence of
the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, is now the resting place of articles destined
eventually to be housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum. Formerly a country-
house of Warren Hastings,* it was purchased in 1854 for the residence of Sir
Frederick Halliday, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. It is a handsome
edifice, and stands in extensive and well-kept grounds. It was greatly improved
and embellished by Sir Ashley Eden. At the spot which is now the west entrance
of Belvedere, on the Alipore Road, was fought the famous duel between Warren
Hastings and Philip Francis, in which the latter was wounded. Nor far from this
spot is Hastings House, the favourite residence of the great Governor-General,
which is now used as a guest-house for Native Chiefs.

To the west of Government House, and nearer to the river, stands the
High Court. This imposing structure in somewhat florid Gothic was completed
in 1872 on the site of the old Supreme Court. The design is said to have been
suggested by the Town Hall at Ypres. The Town Hall stands west of Govern-
ment House, between it and the High Court. It is a large building in the Doric
style, approached by a flight of steps leading up to the grand portico and contains
many interesting statues and portraits. The Indian Museum, situated in Chow-
ringhee, contains a fine collection of fossils and minerals, a geological gallery and
a gallery of antiquities. Adjoining it are the Economic Museum and the School
of Art. The Victoria Memorial Hall, to which allusion has just been made, in
memory of the late Queen-Empress, is now in course of construction at the south
end of the Maidan near the Cathedral.

The Central Post Office, opened in 1870, occupies a position in Dalhousie
Square on the site of the old fort. In the same square are Writers' Buildings,
now used for the offices of the Bengal Secretariat, and other Government Offices.
The Survey Office occupies substantial quarters in Wood Street. The Bank of
Bengal, incorporated as a Presidency Bank by Act XI of 1876, has a fine building

* This period is admirably recalled in Dr. Busteed's " Echoes of Old Calcutta."

•■SSfw;-:

The High Court, Calcutta.

in the Strand erected in 1809. Hard by it is the Metcalfe Hall, occupied by the
new Imperial Library. The Mahomedan mosques and Hindu temples of Calcutta
have no great architectural merit, the only mosque of any pretensions being the
one at the corner of DhurrumtoUa Street, which was built and endowed in 1842 by
Prince Ghulam Muhammad, son of Tipu Sultan. But the Jain temple at
Manicktola, founded in 1867 by Rai Buddree Dass Bahadur, Court Jeweller to
the Government of India, should be seen. Its magnificent ornamentation and the
grounds in which it stands are the pride of the wealthy Jain community. Kali
Ghat, in the south of the town, is a place of great sanctity for Hindus, and
numbers go there every day to bathe in Tolly's Nullah. The temple, a sordid
and unattractive building, which is said to be about 300 years old, has 194 acres
of land assigned for its maintenance.

The Cathedral Church of the See of Calcutta, St. Paul's, stands at the
south-east corner of the Maidan. It was commenced in 1839 and consecrated
in 1847, and it is practically the work of Bishop Wilson. Of the 7^ lakhs raised
to build and endow the Cathedral, the Bishop gave 2 lakhs, the East India
Company i^ lakhs, and 2*8 lakhs was subscribed in England; only Rs. 1,20,000
was collected in India. It is built in a style which is known in Calcutta as Indo-
Gothic, that is to say, Gothic adapted by a military engineer to the exigencies ot
the Indian climate. The building is 247 feet in length with a transept of 1 14 feet,
and the tower and spire are 207 feet high. Among the many monuments to
famous Englishmen who have served in this country, the most conspicuous is a
colossal kneeling figure in episcopal robes by Chantrey bearing the single word
'Heber. ' The spire was rebuilt in 1897, the original one having been destroyed
in the earthquake of that year. St. John's, the old Cathedral, was commenced
in 1784. It was erected to replace the still older Church of St. Anne's, which
occupied the site of the modern Bengal Council Chamber and was demolished by
Siraj-ud-daula in 1756. St. John's was built chiefly by voluntary subscriptions,
the site being the gift of a Raja. In the graveyard is the mausoleum which covers
the remains of Job Charnock ; and slabs commemorating Surgeon William Hamil-
ton, who died in 17 17, and Admiral Watson, are built into the walls of the Church.
The Charnock mausoleum was erected, probably in 1695, by his son-in-law, and is
"the oldest example of British masonry now existing in Calcutta." The old
Mission Church has a peculiar interest as having been erected between 1767 and
1770 by Kiernander, the first Protestant Missionary to Bengal, at his own expense.
In 1786 the good Swede found himself unable to defray the charges involved by
his benevolent schemes, as well as to pay the bills of a spendthrift son and the
church was seized by the sheriff. It was rescued and restored to religious purposes
by Charles Grant, afterwards the well-known East Indian Director, who paid
Rs. 10,000, the sum at which it was appraised. Other churches of the Anglican

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communion are the Fort church of St. Peter, St. Thomas's, St. Stephen's, Kid-
derpore, and St. James's, besides several others belonging to missionarj^ bodies.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral, situated in the heart of the commercial quarter,
was built in 1797, taking the place of a chapel built by the Portuguese in 1700.
The Greek church in the same quarter was built by subscriptions in 1780, and the
Armenian Church was completed in 1790. At the corner of Dalhousie Square, on
the site of the old Mayor's Court-house, stands the Scottish church of St. Andrew.

The Maidan, the chief open spacfe in Calcutta, stretches from Government
House and the Eden Gardens on the north to Tolly's Nullah on the south,
Chowringhee lying on the east, and the river and Fort on the west. Scattered
over it are several monuments, the most conspicuous of them being the Ochterlony
column, erected in honour of Sir David Ochterlony, who ' for fifty years a soldier,
served in every Indian war from the time of Hyder downwards.' It rises 165 feet,
with a Saracenic capital, and its summit commands a noble view of the city.
Facing the river is a pillared archway erected by the citizens of Calcutta to perpetu-
ate the memory of James Prinsep, founder of the science of Indian numismatics.
Near Park Street is the fine bronze statue of Sir James Outram, in which he is
represented with drawn sword looking round to his troops and cheering them for-
ward. Among other monuments may be mentioned those of Lord Roberts, Lord
William Bentinck, Lord Hardinge, Lord Mayo, Lord Lawrence, Lord Duflferin
and Lord Lansdowne, and the statue of Lord Curzon is a noteworthy and recent
addition to this group. A statue of Queen Victoria by Frampton has been placed
on the Maidan, waiting till it may find a more honoured position in the Hall now
being erected to her memory. On the south-west side of the Maidan is the race-
course, while the rest of it is devoted to recreation grounds.

Other open spaces are the Eden Gardens, named after the Misses Eden,
sisters of Lord Auckland, on the north-west of the Maidan ; Dalhousie Square, in
the heart of the official quarter ; Beadon Square, in the north of the town,
named after a Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal ; and a series of squares by the side
of Cornwallis, College, Wellington, and Wellesley Streets. The Zoological Gardens
at Alipore were opened by the (then) Prince of Wales in 1876. They are managed
by an honorary committee, and are maintained chiefly by donations and subscrip-
tions, entrance receipts and a Government grant-in-aid. The gardens contained,
in 1913, 336 mammals, 1162 birds, and 150 reptiles..

At Sibpur, on the opposite bank of the Hooghly, are situated the Botanical
Gardens, which are beautifully laid out along the river and are stocked with rare
tropical plants. They were founded in 1786, at the instance of Colonel Alexander
Kyd, for the collection of plants indigenous to the country and for the introduction

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and acclimatisation oi plants from foreign parts. This object has been fully-
realised, and among the greatest triumphs of the gardens may be mentioned the
introduction of the tea plant from China. They cover 272 acres, and contain a fine
herbarium, a botanical library, and monuments to the first two Superintendents,
Kyd and Roxburgh. Of greater fame is the wonderful banyan tree that covers 900
feet in circumference. When Bishop Heber visited the garden he wrote : " It is
not only a curious, but picturesque and most beautiful scene, and more perfectly
answers Milton's idea of Paradise, except that it is on a dead flat instead of a hill,
than anything I ever saw. "

Chapter II — On the Way to Dacca.

]0 visit Bengal without travelling on the great rivers which intersect
that province would be almost as bad as going to Agra without
seeing the Taj Mahal, and one may see something of the rivers and
appreciate their importance as highways of commerce without
making the long journey to Dibrugarh. For example, it one goes from
Calcutta to Dacca the rail journey is broken at Goalundo and from there
to Narayanganj is continued by steamer. The night mail from Calcutta
deposits one at Goalundo in the early hours of the morning, and there is little time
for the tourist in a hurry to see much of this village and to appreciate its importance
as a trade centre before he leaves on the steamer for Narayanganj. But Goalundo,
the terminus of one section of the Eastern Bengal State Railway, merits
some description. The groups of thatched huts of which the village consists are
a poor index to the transhipment trade of this busy mart. It is situated at the
junction of the Padma, or Ganges, and the Brahmaputra, and daily services of
steamers connect it with the railway systems at Narayanganj and Chandpur, and
with the steamer services to Madaripur, Barisal, Sylhet, and Cachar. There are
also daily services of steamers up the Padma to Digha Ghat in the dry season, and
Buxar in the rains, and up the Brahmaputra to Dibrugarh. From that it will be
seen that Goalundo occupies a very strong strategic position in the waterways of
Bengal, a position which has been made much stronger by railway development.
But this strengthening has not been effected without much difficulty, for Goalundo
has the wandering habits of the prodigal son and constantly evinces a strong desire
to escape from doing its duty in that state of life to which it has pleased an
imperious trade to call it. It is the
unstable water which has misled it, as it
has misled many another Eastern town,
into these ways. Formerly Goalundo
was situated exactly at the junction of the
rivers Padma and Brahmaputra, and
large sums were spent in protecting the
site from erosion ; but in 1875 the spur
was washed away, and since that date the
terminus has constantly been on the
move, with the result that it is now to

be found about seven miles south of its former position. This being the case
there are no permanent landing stages. The steamers come as close alongside
as they can and narrow planks serve as gangways for the use of passengers and
coolies carrying the cargo to and from the shore.

The crumbling nature of the alluvial
soil renders the banks easily adaptable to
these makeshift arrangements, and an occa-
sional fall of a few tons of earth into the river
seems to inconvenience no one. It might be
supposed that those who live in the exten-
sive bazar of Goalundo and the officials of
the railway and steamer companies would
find it somewhat bewildering to live in a port
of such erratic habits : but their houses are
of the flimsiest build and so they are enabled
to move snail-like after the peripatetic termi-
nus, to whose vagaries they must by now be accustomed. In fact the history ot
Goalundo and its inhabitants affords a capital argument against the platitudinous
thesis that a rolling stone gathers no moss. The volume of trade passing through
it is enormous, the chief commodities dealt in being jute, oilseeds, food-grains,
and hilsa fish for the Calcutta market.

Those who have time to go up the Brahmaputra from Goalundo will find
themselves amply rewarded, for the scenery there is wild and the deep gorges cut
by contributory rivers — if not comparable in beauty with the celebrated defiles on
the Irrawaddy — are very fine and the forest-clad uplands provide a welcome
contrast to the dead level of the land farther south. Yet it must not be supposed
that the low-lying lands (a wicked poet once said that the people inhabiting those
lands were low, lying people) are devoid of interest : far from it, and even those
familiar with the scenery of more famous river haunts frequented by the tourist
will enjoy a journey through this flat and fertile country. From Goalundo to
Narayanganj by steamer on the Padma, as the Ganges is called on its lower
reaches, takes about seven hours, and as the boats are comfortable and the
prospect always pleases, the journey is well worth making and serves as a intro-
duction to the great system of waterways that is the main characteristic of this
province. The amazing width of the river, the fights and shades reflected on its
muddy waters, the vivid green of the fields of rice and jute that fringe the banks
and recede into the mists of the far horizon across the flat alluvial plains, the
thatched huts with hog's-back roofs — or huts modernized and ugly with the more
water-proof iron tops — and the little clusters of palms and other trees — all this

makes up a moving panorama that one may watch for hours untired. This, it is
forcibly brought home to one, is the India that knows not the horrors of famine.
This is, indeed, the land of the pagoda tree : here if anywhere have the teeming
peasantry reason to be content with their lot. This is the pulcher Ganges which,
Vergil said, could not compete with the glories of Italy.

Narayanganj, the port of Dacca, is splendidly typical of the prosperity of
this part of Bengal. It is said to have been a busy mart a century ago, and the
growth of the jute trade and the development of rail and steamer communications
have made it vastly more busy. It is also said to be a pattern municipality,
which means much in a land where the municipality system of government has
yet room to improve very considerably. But what will most impress the visitor
is the approach to Narayanganj. He may come armed with the knowledge that
this port taps the huge jute areas of Mymensingh, North Tippera, and Dacca, and

Riverside Village, Goalundo.
that it focusses the imports from Calcutta for their dense populations : but he is
hardly likely to be prepared for the busy scene in the river as he draws near the
landing stage. Both banks of the Lakhya, on which river this town is situated
are lined with large warehouses, and the stream is filled with steamers, tugs,
native boats of every description, and the curious roofed barges used for the
transport of jute. 'Ihese signs of a busy emporium are repeated on shore. Here
is the terminus of the metre-gauge railway that goes northward through
Dacca and Mymensingh, and here also is evidence in plenty of the great
dimensions to which the jute industry has attained within the last thirty years.
The growth of that industry is one of the miracles with which one is always
coming in contact in Bengal, and the historian of it— Mr. D. R. Wallace — did
well to call his work on the subject " The Romance of Jute." A little more than
seventy years ago Dundee flax and hemp spinners used to guarantee their
products "free from Indian jute." Then in 1838 the value of jute yarn

was

discovered and the Dundee jute industry was born. In 1855 the first spinning
machinery was brought out to Calcutta from Dundee, the first mill was estab-
lished — on part of the garden house property which was once owned by Warren
Hastings — and the first machine-spun jute yarns produced. In the place of
that one mill there are to-day 58 mills with over 33,000 looms and over 6,82,000
spindles, employing over 2,16,000 persons. In 1850-51 the value of jute to India
as represented by the exports of the raw and (Indian) manufactured material, was
about ;^ 2 7 5, 000. In 1911-12 the value ot the exports, raw and manufactured,
was about 30 million sterling, and the acreage under jute in the same year was
nearly three millions.

The mud flats along the river banks grow, in addition to jute, great
quantities of rice, oil seeds and pulses. Rice is the staple food crop, the most
common variety being harvested in winter, but spring and autumn kinds are also
cultivated, with the result that there is always some green to be seen by the
riverside, no matter at what time of year the journey may be made. But the
winter months are most to be recommended for seeing this part of India, although
even at the latter end of April or early in May the river trips will be found
pleasantly cool in contrast to the stifling heat on shore at mid-day. The enter-
prise which has made this mode of travel possible has found an able historian in
Mr. Alfred Brame, whose account of the rise of " The India General Steam
Navigation Company, Limited" — the parent commercial river company of India —
is well worth reading. The company was founded in 1844 and retained its title
unchanged up to 1899, when it was reconstructed as the India General Navigation
and Railway Company. It does for Bengal and Assam to-day the same sort of
service that the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company does for Burma, and has developed to
an amazing extent. Another company of the same description is the Rivers Steam
Navigation Company, which was founded in 1862 with a fleet of three steamers
and three flats. It has now 130
steamers and twice that number
of flats and barges. Its latest
steamers— such as the " Kha-
roti," which was built in. the
Company's dockyard, at Garden
Reach, with accommodation for
12 saloon and 1,500 deck pas-
sengers and a cargo capacity of
18,500 maunds— are of the most
up to date pattern, well fitted,
and with good arrangements
for catering. The magnitude

Fishing at Goalundo.

of the operations of these two companies may be estimated from a statistical
summary. This combined fleet now stands at : — Steamers 208, Harbour Tugs
and Launches 38, Running Flats 252, Receiving Flats 72, Barges and Boats 194,
which with other craft, such as Dredgers, Floating Cranes, etc., 39, make a total
of 800 vessels. The Companies' despatch services extend over many thousands of
miles of waterways in the four great provinces of Bengal, Assam, Behar and the
North West, besides running a great number of feeder, or branch, services,
especially' in the Backergunj district of Bengal. The despatch service lines are

River Bank at Goalundo.
from Calcutta to Assam, terminating at Dibrughar (1,108 miles); Calcutta to
Cachar terminating at Silchar (771 miles) ; and Calcutta to Dinapore (936 miles),
whence feeder Hues branch off and terminate at Buxar on the Ganges (1,018 miles)
and Adjodhya (Fyzabad) on the Gogra, 1,229 miles from Calcutta. The maund-
age carried by the Joint Companies from July ist to December 31st, 191 2,
approximated 30,000,000 maunds, or considerably over a million tons of
merchandise. The I. G. N. & Ry. Co. also own a Railway extending from
Juggernathgunj on the Brahmaputra river to Mymensingh, whieh is worked by
the Eastern Bengal State Railway in connection with their Dacca Section on
behalf of the I. G. N. & Ry. Co.

Dacca has less interesting history than, from its appearance, one might
expect. It derives its name, according to some wise men, from the goddess
Dhakeswari, who has a shrine here : others assign the origin of the name to the
dhak tree, known to botanists as Butea frondosa. Both explanations are plausible
enough to satisfy the average tourist. What is of more importance to remem-
ber is that Dacca became the capital of Eastern Bengal early in the seventeenth
century when Islam Khan made it his head-quarters, finding it a convenient base
for his operations against the Ahoms of Assam and against the Portuguese
pirates who, as allies of the Arakanese, were then ravaging the waterways of
the Delta. In the first century of its existence as capital, it attained to great
prosperity. The great trading companies that were exploiting the East — the
English, French, Dutch, Portuguese— all had factories in Dacca, of which, how-
ever, no trace remains to-day. Those were the days when Dacca muslins were
known all the world over, and the trade in them continued until the end of the

Secretariat at Dacca,,.

eighteenth century when it began to wane before the competition of English piece-
goods made by machinery. Even now one may be so foitunate as to acquire one
of the old pieces but at a cost of fifty rupees or so the square yard.

In 1704 the Nawab Murshid Kuil Khan moved his residence to
Murshidabad and with that potentate the glory of Dacca departed. A few
mosques of no great distinction from the architectural point of view and a large
and rambling native town remain to remind one that Dacca was once a fine
Mahomedan town at the time when the Mahomedan Rulers of India were
making history by their conquest and by their magnificent buildings. Coming
to modern times, Dacca was the scene of an exciting episode in the Sepoy
Mutiny of 1857. Two companies of sepoys were then stationed in the fort, and
on the first alarm of the outbreak at Meerut, 100 men of the Indian Navy were
sent up from Calcutta for the protection of Dacca, With these sailors and a

, Government House, Dacca.

Anglican Church, Dacca.

small company of civilian volunteers, it was resolved to disarm the sepoys who
were becoming mutinous. This end was achieved only after a sharp fight in
which 41 rebels were killed on the field, and a number of others were killed in
their flight or drowned in crossing the river.

Were it not for the partition of Bengal, under which scheme Dacca
enjoyed a few years of metropolitan glory, it might to-day be not very different
from what it was in the time of the mutiny. As it is, Dacca shows many signs of
the grandeur which it had thrust upon it — in fact a new Dacca was built to house

CuRZON Hall and part of the Dacca College.

the Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam and all the machinery
of Government called into existence with him in October 1905. This new town
was hardly completed when, in 191 1, a re-adjustment of the partition scheme
was announced atthe Delhi Durbar and Dacca fell from its high state as capital
of a Province. Thus there were less than six years in which to plan and build
the new town, but in that time much was accomplished. As an example of town
planning Dacca does not compare with, for example, Kuala Lumpur, the capital
of the Federated Malay States, but it well repays study. It will be noticed in

particular that the town displays an unusual mixture of architectural styles.
What was intended to be Government House is a Renaissance building, rather
lacking in breadth. What will become Dacca University is in the Moghul style
as also is the Madrassa. The old College is a classical structure possessing

considerable dignity. The Secreta-
riat, by Mr. Ransome, cannot be
said to be in any definite style, but
cannot fail to attract attention owing
to its unusual character : it repre-
sents an effort to evolve something
to meet new conditions with an eye
to economy. Finally, the Church is
an architectural curiosity, belong-
ing to no style or period, charac-
teristic of the English Church
builders in India.

Reference h^s been made to
the muslins for which Dacca is
famed, but a fuller account of them
is demanded in even the briefest
survey of the town. These muslins have long been famous and known under
poetic names indicative of their beauty, such as the a 67'a7tan— running water
(because if placed in a stream it could scarcely be seen), dafi /lana— woven air
(because if thrown in the air it would float like a cloud) ; skab-na77z— evening dew
(because If placed on the grass it could hardly be seen). Dr. Taylor, in his
history of Dacca muslins, speaking of the fineness of the thread, remarks that "a
skein which a native weaver mea-
sured in my presence in 1846, and
which was afterwards carefully
weighed, proved to be in the pro-
portion of 250 miles to the pound
of cotton." In these muslins there
are usually more threads in the
warp than in the woof, the latter
being to the former, in a piece
weighing twenty tolas, in the pro-
portion of nine to eleven. The
value of a piece of plain muslin is
estimated by its length and the

Temple on the Dacca Race-course.

Chittagong Sailing Boat.

number of threads in its warp, compared with its weight. The greater the length
and the number of threads and the less the weight, the higher the price. Only
the expert can hope to tell by the eye the difference between muslin valued at
Rs. 150 and those at Rs. 600 the piece. A popular method of testing fineness
used to be to ascertain if the piece measured could be passed through a lady's
finger ring. "It has often been contended that even at the present day the
hand-loom muslins of Dacca are finer than any produced by machinery, but this
is a mistake ; the finest Dacca muslins do not exceed four hundreds, whereas
several manufacturers in England can and do produce six hundreds. The demand
for such goods is, however, very limited and steam power is therefore never likely
to be employed in their production. The limited demand is the Indian hand
labourer's chief safety with many of his artistic manufactures." [Indian Art at
Delhi by Sir George Watt.) The finest of all the Dacca muslins used to be called
Mulnml Klias, the king's muslin, but th^ Jamdani or figured muslin is the finest
product of the Indian weaver of to-day. The fabric oixh^ Javidani is, as a rule,
grey cotton, ornamented with blue-black designs, or with brightly coloured cottons
and gold and silver wire. The designs are commonly accepted as Persian in
origin.

Chapter IJL — Tk(^ Sara Bridge.

\T Damukdia, 119 miles froni Calcutta, the main route of the Eastern
Bengal State Railway comes to the Ganges, and here passengers
and cargo must be ferried across to Sara on the left bank. This
operation, so far as passengers are concerned, is simple. They go
aboard a comfortable paddle steamer, and if crossing in the evening,
immediately sit down to an excellent dinner while their luggage is being
taken on. The actual crossing takes under half an hour, and, so long
as it is not interrupted by a sand storm, which is harmful to the soup and to the
temper, forms a pleasant interlude in the journey. The transhipment of goods
is a more difficult problem, and the varying levels of the river and a break in gauge
do not make it any easier. But a great proportion of the extensive goods traffic
on this line crosses ihe river in trucks carried on specially constructed flats towed
over by paddle steamers. It is an expensive system and so long ago as 1889 the
administration of the Eastern Bengal State Railway put forward a proposal for
oridging the 'Ganges at Sara. Nineteen years later, after much discussion as to
the site of the bridge, a scheme was sanctioned and Mr. R. R. Gales was appoint-
ed Engineer-in-Chi^f of the project. Thus the ferry system is doomed, and the
bridge will shortly provide through rail communication between the jute-growing
area to the north-east of the site and Calcutta. A very large traffic in wheat and
seeds from the area to the north-west is also expected, and the gain in con-
venience, by obviating the present double transhipment and delay, is expected to
lead to a large increase in the passenger traffic between Darjeeling and Shillong
and Calcutta. Apart from the expense of the ferry system one has to bear in
mind also the deterrent effect on trade of the loss and delays due to that system
and the actual loss incurred by consignors in damage and delay to actual
despatches.

The Lower Ganges Bridge at Sara is the most important engineering
scheme at present being carried out in India, and in some respects one of the
most notable in any part of the world. The difficulty that here confronts the
engineer is not how to span a mile or so of water, but how to train the river,
which has frequently changed its course, not to desert the bridge when built.
Thus after the site had been selected (9 miles below Raita, the present railway
terminus on the right bank, and 3 miles below Sara, the present terminus on the
left bank) almost the first thing to do was to build banks to control the water.
A pair of guide banks have for this purpose been constructed at the bridge site
to prevent further lateral movement of the river, and a revetment of the bank

of the river has been built at Sara Ghat Station and another revetment at Raita
Ghat Station. When it is understood that the annual rise of the river in flood
time is 31 feet and that there is a maximum flood discharge at this point of
2,500,000 cusecs, it v^^ill be seen that the training works have to be of great
strength. An ingenious statistician has computed that the amount of stone
used in "pitching " these guide banks of sand and clay would fill a broad-gauge
train extending from Calcutta to Darjeeling, and this gives a vivid idea of the
magnitude of the task.

Loading Wagons on Flats, Sara Ferry.

Work on the bridge itself was begun in 191 1, and it is hoped that it may
be opened to traffic in 1915. It is to consist of 15 spans jf 352 feet and two land
spans of 75 feet, a total length of 5,430 feet. It will provide for a double line,
and when it is complete the broad-gauge will be extended northward to Santahar,
52 miles from Sara, which will therefore become the changing station for
Darjeeling passenger traffic to the metre-gauge system.

The bridge is to be carried on 16 piers, for which well foundations — 150
feet deep and 63 feet long by 37 feet wide - have been sunk. The great depth. of
the wells, the deepest in the world, is necessary owing to the scouring action of the
river, and has been obtained by direct dredging with plant electrically driven from
two power houses, one on each bank. The piers are formed of concrete blocks

above the steel caissons, and of steel trestles above high flood level. A very
noticeable feature of the project is the approach work, w^hich alone has cost
Rs. 84 lakhs. On the left bank the approach is about 4 miles long and for
2,000 feet of that length is at the unusual height of 50 feet above the surround-
ing country : on the right bank the approach 'is three miles long. To the
layman who cannot readily appreciate these figures, others may be presented
thai, will illustrate the great extent of the scheme. It is estimated that the whole
undertaking will cost Rs. 4,76,68,863. It is a colossal figure. And the bridge
has been long in construction, but might have been ready at an earlier date
had there not been strikes in England, which delayed the shipment of girders.

Wagon Ferry, Sara.

and an outbreak of cholera among the army of coolies (^at one time amounting to
25,000) employed on the work.*

A very interesting stage of the construction on the Sara side of the river was
reached in June, 1913, when, after some weeks of anxiety lest the work should be

^ Some additional statistics may here be given. The wells require —
36,00,000 c. feet of \\ stone ballast.
20,00,000 c. feet of sand,
125,000 casks of Portland cement.
7,906 tons steel work.
Land acquired for the scheme under the Land Acquisition Act amounts to-
Right Bank 1,888 acres.

Left „ 2,143 ..

Quarries .., .,. ,,. ,., ,,. ... 741 ,,

ruined by floods, the first main span of girders was erected together with the
service girder which is to perform the functions of the ordinary timber staging for
the deep water spans. The last piece of main girder was received at Paksey on
the 20th May, and the last piece of service girder on the 29th May. The service

girder weighing 870 tons was
erected and struck almost fully
rivetted on the 14th June and
the main span weighing 1,200
tons was erected and struck on
the 17th June. This span is
carried on 40 per cent, of
parallel drifts fully filling the
holes and sixty per cent, of
service bolts. The floods began
to rise on the 15th June and
submerged the piles of the stag-

RiVER Bank by Sara Bridge. ing on the 1 8th June. The

bridge-builders were just in time, and the nicety of their calculation was
remarkable.

To this account of the Sara ferry and bridge must be added at least a list
of the other ferry services over the Ganges and Brahmaputra for, owing to its
unique geographical position, the Eastern Bengal State Railway presents prob-
lems in transportation which are not encountered on any other railway in India.
These ferries are —

Between Lalgolaghat and Godagarighat, Passenger service and flat
transhipment.

Between Amingaon and Pandu, Passenger service and wagon ferry.

Between Fulchhari and Bahadurabad, Wagon Ferry and will shortly be
opened to Passenger traffic.

At Maniharighat, worked by the East Indian Railway,

Besides the fact that there is a break of gauge at Sara, Godagari and
Maniharighat, the difficulty of working these transhipments is enormously increased
by the fact that the rivers are continually shifting and shoaling when the water
is dropping, often with very little notice. These alterations of the rivers frequently
necessitate the shifting of the ghats, and it is sometirnes necessary to
move the ghats several miles in order to get good water. As it is sometimes
necessary to open new ghats at each place, two and three times in a year,
the labour and expense of keeping them open are very great.

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Chapter IV . — Darjeeling,

i;T the village of Siliguri the Eastern Bengal State Railway comes to
an end, and is joined by the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway. The
village is the terminus also of the cart road from Kalimpong and
Sikkim, and is thus the focus of the local trade — but is known to the
traveller only as a stepping stone on the way to the hills. Of the ascent to
Darjeeling much has been written and it is not uncommon to find
the railway described as a masterpiece of engineering skill. But the
Darjeeling Gazetteer* prudently warns one against the sin of exaggeration. It
points out that the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway was constructed on a ready-
made road, and for the most part it was only necessary to lay the rails along that
road. "It is true that skill was required in seeing that the curves and radii
were suitable and not too sharp, but no tunnelling had to be done, and the main
difficulties had been already overcome by the engineering skill of the Public
Works Department, which made the cart road many years before. The railway,
moreover, cannot compare for speed, comfort and cheapness with mountain
railways in other parts of the world, though it was no doubt a creditable
achievement in the days when it was built." That is quite true, but on the
other hand one must remember that this line was built (by the late Mr. Franklin
Prestage) so long ago as 1881 when the science of constructing railways of this
type was in its infancy ; that the line has stood the test of time ; and that great
credit is due to the railway staff for the continued safety of the line which is liable
to be breached by torrents and landslips, as in the cyclone of 1899 when long
stretches of the railway were completely destroyed. In any case the railway has
made Darjeeling accessible. Until the year 1878, when the Northern Bengal
State Railway was opened for traffic, the route from Calcutta to Darjeeling,
available for those who had the time, money, and energy necessary to undertake so
formidable a journey, was by rail from Howrah, the terminus of the East
Indian Railway on the West bank of the Hooghly to Sahebgunge, a distance of
219 miles ; then by steam ferry across the Ganges to Carragola, thence by bullock
cart to the river opposite Dingra Ghat ; after crossing which, again by bullock
cart or palki gharry to Purneah, Kissengunge, Titalya, and Siliguri whence the

* Bengal District Gazetteers : Darjeeling. By L. S. S. O'Malley, I.C.S. (Bengal Sec
tariat book Depot, 1907.)

ascent commenced via the Punkabaree Road, which joins the present cart road
at Kurseong-. The whole journey took from five to six days, and was about
as exhausting and uncomfortable a journey as can well be imagined ; now it is
made in twenty hours, the Siliguri to Darjeeling section taking about six hours.

The total length of the railway from Siliguri (398 ft. above sea level to
Darjeeling (6,812 ft.) is 51 miles, and after the first seven miles, which are
across a gently sloping plain, the gradient is always steep. The difficulties of the

Curve above Tindharia, Darjeeling Hill Railway.

ascent are overcome by reverses or zigzags and by spirals, the train passing
the latter being especially interesting to watch for it is not often that one is pre-
sented, as here, with the spectacle of a train running round like a puppy after
its tail. There is a little illustrated guide to the railway and Darjeeling, which
gives a detailed list of these engineering devices and of the other objects of
interest passed ^w route, and it m.ay profitably be studied in the train. But the real

attraction of the journey lies in the view that one thereby obtains of the lower
slopes of the Himalayas, of the trim tea-gardens monotonous as vineyards among
the disappearing forest, and of fine waterfalls. Added to this is the feeling of
exhilaration that one obtains in steadily rising from the torrid plains to the
cooler atmosphere of the hills. Of the stations on the line, none are of any
importance except Tindharia, where the Railway Company has its workshops,
and Kurseong. From the latter place, in clear weather, a magnificent view may
be obtained of the plains of India as they stretch away from the abrupt mountain

Curves near Ghoom on the Darjeeling Hill Railway.

footholds towards the misty distance of the horizon. Nor is Kurseong to be
disregarded as a hill station. It is the headquarters of a subdivision which includes
much of the low-lying belt known as the Terai, and is a place of growing
importance as a kind of hill station supplementary to Darjeeling. Its com-
paratively low altitude (4,860 ft.) and mild climate are much in its favour. The
Jesuits have here a training college, and there are also a church and a club
together with other adjuncts of civilisation.

1-1

M
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A tablet in St. Andrew's Church at Darjeeling, to the memory of General
Lloyd, records the fact that "to his exertions and personal influence with the
Raja of Sikkim the Province of Bengal is indebted for the Sanitarium of
Darjeeling." As a fact he was the first European to visit the place, in 1829, and
his representations about it to Lord William Bentinck, who was then Governor-
General, resulted six years later in the cession of what was then a worthless
uninhabited mountain to the British. In 1841 the Government granted the
Kaja of Sikkim an allowance of Rs. 3,000 as compensation and raised the
grant to Rs. 6,000 in 1846, only to withdraw it on account of the Raja's
misbehaviour in 1850. The station was not long in developing and the popu-
lation was swelled by immigrants from the neighbouring States in which slavery
was prevalent. Troubles with the adjacent States mark the early history of
Darjeeling, "but by 1866 it had settled down to peace and uninterrupted pro-
gress and had been linked by roads with the outside world. In the sixties also
several hill schools were established, the first of which was St. Paul's School
which was transferred to Darjeeling from Calcutta with a view to making the
hills the home of European Education in India. But the. choice of Darjeeling
as a health resort and the subsequent planting of tea in the hills were still more
important factors in the development of the district : following the tea industry
came the railway. Several experiments in growing tea were made both by
Government and private enterprise before 1856, which is taken as the date at
which the industry was established as a commercial enterprise : once it had
started its growth was phenomenal, and, as the number of tea estates increased,
an unexampled immigration took place from Nepal and elsewhere in order to
meet the demand for labour. A curious result of this rapid economic change in
the conditions of Darjeeling and the surrounding district is that a remarkable
number of the Nepalese have shown the ability to discard their hereditary
occupations and have rapidly become competent mechanics and engineers, either
on the railway or in tea factories.

This immigration has resulted in the collection in Darjeeling of a strange
mixture of races, baffling to the stranger and even to the professed ethnologist.
Ftom the plains there have migrated a variety of merchants, Marwaris for the
most part, and Punjabi traders together with Bengali clerks, Hindustani mechan-
ics, and sweepers from Rajputana. But the majority of faces one sees are unmis-
takably Mongolian, showing that Nepal, Tibet, and other hill countries have
largely contributed to the making of Darjeeling. The aboriginal Lepchas are
said to be leaving Darjeeling for the forest area of Kalimpong or to be slowly
migrating to Bhutan, where they are at liberty to live the nomadic, lazy life of the
true forest-dweller unhampered by the irritating restrictions of civilisation. Their
place is taken by the hardworking, thrifty Nepalese, by the Bhutias— half Lepcha,

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half Tibetan — who are as strong* as they are cheerful ; and by the Koches from
the Terai. "At one end of the scale of civilization (in Darjeeling) stands the
European and at the other remnants of races who express ' agriculture ' by the
term 'felling' or 'clearing the forest,' who have no term for 'village,' for 'horse,'
or for ' plough,' for 'money' of any kind, and whose language is marked by an
absence of any term for nearly every operation of the intellect of will, whether
virtuous or vicious, and for almost every abstract idea, whether material or
immaterial." The majority of these people are Hindus, worshipping a number
of unpleasant spirits constantly in need of propitiation, and a considerable number
profess and call themselves Buddhists.

The Himalayan range, which one views to perfection from Darjeeling, has
been commonly divided into three zones — the great range of snowy peaks, which,
roughly speaking, form the axis of the chain ; the lower or outer Himalayas,
forming a broad belt of mountains of inferior, though still considerable, altitude
south of the snows ; and, thirdly, the comparatively low hills forming the Sub-
Himalayan zone, either as ridges or spurs contiguous with the outer hills or
separated from them by flat-bottomed valleys. In Darjeeling the mountains
belong to the lower Himalayan zone and consist of long tortuous ranges, running
o-enerally from north to south throughout its length. The Sub-Himalayan zone
is altogether wanting, and the detached ridges met elsewhere in the Himalayas are
unrepresented ; while the snowy range lies far beyond the limits of the district
to the north, where it gives the appearance of a long range of mountains stretch-
ino- east ' and west at an average distance of about 50 miles. This range forms
the great backbone of the Darjeeling Himalayas. To the north-west tower the
o-iant peaks of Kinchinjunga (28,146 feet), and to the north-east is Dongkya
(23,184 feet) at a distance of rather less than 50 miles. From Kinchinjunga
the Singalila range, an immense ridge 60 miles long, stretches south to the
plains, forming the boundary between Nepal and Darjeeling. It is the continua-
tion of this ridge in a south and then south-easterly direction by Tanglu and
Senchal, with its various lateral spurs, which constitutes the Darjeeling hill
territory west of the Teesta. To the east of that river a lofty ridge runs south-
wards from Dongkya, dividing at Gipmochi (11,518 feet) into two great spurs,
one of which runs to the south-east and the other to the south-west, including
between them the valley of the Jaldhaka. It is the lower half of the south-
western spur, with its numerous ramifications, that constitutes the hills of
Kalimpong, east of the Teesta. The highest point of these hills is where the

* It is an old story, but worth repeating, that in the days before the railway, a single
Bhutia carried a grand piano up the hills to Darjeeling, 50 miles distant and 7,000 feet in elevation.
Those who have sein a Bhutia woman shoulder an American trunk will find the story not
incredible.

Scene in the Bazaar, Darjeeling.

main ridge first enters British territory, where it has an altitude of over 10,000
feet; the other eminences do not exceed 7,000 or 8,000 feet. So much for geogra-
phy. But one does not as a rule go to Darjeeling to learn the position and altitude
of the various Himalayan peaks so much as to observe the beauty of the everlasting
hills. It is important therefore to go at the season of the year when one may be
reasonably certain of obtaining a view of the snowy range unimpeded by mist
and clouds. The months of November, December and January form this
season — though fortune may occasionally favour the visitor by lifting the veil of
clouds at a much later time of year — and then the mountains may be seen
standing out in stereoscopic sharpness and the intervening distance appears to
be enormously diminished owing to the clearness of the atmosphere. (As

Stevenson said of the Alpine landscape, "space is reduced again to chaos

the scene has a character of insanity.") At some other times only the summits
of the mountains can be seen emerging from a sea of clouds : and there are
many days in the year when a wall of mist which the eye cannot penetrate shuts
off the mountains from the world, and when disappointment is the inevitable
lot of him who goes forth in the hope of seeing one of the most superb scenes in
the world. But when there is any view at all, there can be nothing more won-
derful : and the visitor to Darjeeling will do well to ride out early to Tiger Hill,
or walk to the more accessible Observatory Hill in time to see the sun rise.
From nowhere can the pageantry of
the arrival and departure of day be
better seen than from the latter Hill
on a winter day, and no pen has yet
described the full glory of that chang-
ing scene when —

From grey of dusk the veils unfold
To pearl and amethyst and gold

Thus is the new day woven and spun :
From glory of blue to rainbow spray
From sunset-gold to violet-grey

Thus is the restful night re-won.

It is a scene on which one may
look untired day after day, and on no
two days do the snows in all their
glory appear to be the same.

It is to be regretted that the
Buddhist is a lover of the mountain

tops,

and his somewhat ostentatious

Summit of Observatory Hill.

presence on Observatory Hill is apt to interfere with the meditations which sight
of the mountains may inspire. For the hill was once crowned by a Buddhist
Monastery which was destroyed by invading Gurkhas some hundred years
ago, and of which only the hallowed associations remain. Thus the site

is a holy place where pious Buddhists sing
endless prayers, ring bells, and make pro-
pitiatory offerings of no intrinsic value —
all no doubt commendable proceedings of
great advantage to the spiritual welfare
of the worshipper and seriously annoying
to evil spirits, but extremely irritating to
those who there seek to be alone with
nature in the contemplation of its glory.
The centre of the hill is occupied by a
kind of stone altar surrounded by bamboo
poles from which flutter the rags and
flags, "the horses of the wind," which
transport the prayers of the devout to the
ears of the gods : and a curious effect is
produced among these tattered Buddhist
flags by a large cross — which is found
on closer investigation to be only a pole
and cross piece for carrying electric light
wires. Near by a tree is decked with what
appears to be the contents of a rag-and-
bone man's hoard. Such is Buddhism in
its most repellent aspect, a kind of demonolatry as far removed from the
religion taught by the Buddha as it is possible to conceive. This surely is not
the creed that once conquered half the East and led kings captive beneath its
compelling sway. Nor does one find a much more attractive form of Buddhism
in the monastery in Bhutia Basti, a few hundred feet down the hillside. It is a
plain two-storeyed structure, with idols enshrined on the ground floor. The
mural paintings, recently refurbished in garish colours, illustrate the degeneracy
of Buddhist art which, according to some incomprehensible critics, is finer than
anything the Greeks ever produced ; but those who are capable of studying
them will find of considerable interest the library of sacred books that is housed in
this building. Prayer- wheels, great and small, flank the entrance — machines
which, if they were not regarded and used with fervour by Buddhist worshippers,
one might have supposed to be the invention of some cynic engaged in the
task of ridiculing the "vain repetition " of prayers. A more portable form of

A Bhutia Tamasha.

prayer-wheel is to be purchased from the many dealers in "antiques'
Darjeeling, and is with tourists a popular souvenir of Buddhist monastic life.

From Darjeeling a number of interesting excursions can be made, and the
visitor who has never seen a tea garden should not fail to do so. Few industries
have developed so rapidly in India as that of tea cultivation which was only
established on a commercial basis about the time of the Mutiny.* Now an
enormous, and still increasing area of land is under tea and the slopes of the
Himalayas up to Darjeeling are plentifully covered with it. To those unfamiliar
with the sight there can be few more pleasant experiences than to watch the various
operations of plucking, withering, rolling, fermenting, drying and sifting the tea,
which are followed by the packing in the familiar wooden chests.

Most of the area in Darjeeling has
been planted with the China variety
which was for many years considered
the only kind suited for the production
of fine tea. Some planters of experi-
ence still hold to this view, though it
is now a very rare thing for the pure
China plant to be planted. Of late
years the variety known as the " Assam
indigenous " has been much in favour,
and it is certainly capable of producing
the very finest tea ; but it is very deli-
cate. A hybrid from these two
varieties has proved most suitable all
round. Some fields have been planted
with the " Manipur indigenous " which
is the most hardy of all the varieties,
and gives a good yield, but the tea produced is almost invariably coarse and
rank in flavour. These three are the principal varieties of tea at present cultiva-
ted. Darjeeling tea is famous for its peculiarly fine flavour ; but the quality
produced varies greatly in diff"erent parts of the district, and varies also remark-
ably at different seasons of the year on the same estates. It is indeed not
uncommon for teas produced in one month to sell for double, and occasionally
four times, the price of teas produced on the same estate two months later or
earlier, as the case may be. The finest teas are usually produced from the second
growth, just before the advent of the monsoon rains, and again at the end of

* In i9i2-i3 the exports of Indian tea were valued at Rs. 14,18,81,020 (;6"g, 458, 734) of
which over three-quarters went to the United Kingdom.

Bhutia Mummers.

the season, when the growth has become slow and the sap thick. It is a
generally recognised fact that the teas produced during the rainy season are watery
and poor.

A variety of excursions, short and long, may be made from Darjeeling by
those anxious to see other aspects of the Himalayas than can be seen from
Observatory Hill. Of these the easiest, and one of the most popular, is to
Senchal, 7 miles south-east of Darjeeling. A ride to that place is not a great
undertaking ; and if the visitor is favoured with a clear day, and can undertake
to be at " Tiger Hill "' (8,514 feet), near the site of the old barracks on Senchal
before sunrise, he will have before him one of the finest sights of the snowy range
which the Himalayas can afford. Mount Everest (28,994 feet) is seen to
advantage from "Tiger Hill." "A jagged line of snow" connects the two
highest mountains — Everest and Kinchenjunga (28,156 feet). More ambitious
expeditions are to Phalut (i 1,81 1 feet), Subargum ( [0,430 feet), and Tongloo
(10,074 f^6t) — mountains in the range that lies to the west of the town. These
necessitate the employment of coolies to carry the camp kit and of guides.
There aie bungalows on the route which may be occupied under certain con-
ditions that may be learned from the Deputy Commissioner in Darjeeling.

Chapter V. — In ihe Hills of Assam.

(O part of India is more mysterious than the north-east, and it the
tourist cannot hope to solve the secrets of the upper courses of the
Brahmaputra, to penetrate to the ill-defined frontier, or to stay a
^^z.i&:a^ week-end with the inhospitable Abors, he may at least go off the
beaten tourist track and go to the lovely hills of Assam. The old
guidebooks used to say that places "well repaid a visit:" the visitor
to Shillong is repaid a hundredfold for his trouble. And after all it is
not much trouble, for the eastern extension of the Eastern Bengal State Rail-
way takes him most of the way. The divergence from the Calcutta-Siliguri line
is at Santahar, thence eastward to Amingaon, the railway passes through
country partly cultivated and partly covered either with jungle or forest. The
coarse grass of the jungle, growing as high as an elephant, is as good an index
to the luxuriance of the soil as the large herds of cattle that may be seen
grazing by the line or the wide expanse of arable land ; and as one approaches
Amingaon on the Brahmaputra, the verdure of the forest-clad slopes, with
occasional burnt-out clearings, suggests a comparison with the incomparable
beauty of colouring that is to be found in the Malay Peninsula. It will be noticed
from the train as one passes up this valley that the population is very scanty.
The valley is an alluvial plain about 450 miles in length and on an average 50
miles broad, and of this area much, though very fertile, is waste land. "On the
north and south below the hills the country is generally covered with jungle ;
by the ever-shifting banks of the mighty river, which in the rains extends to
5 or 6 miles in breadth, precarious crops are snatched before the floods sweep
down. It is in the central tract between the jungle and the river that population
is mainly found : generally the tea gardens are near the hills and below them
lie the villages. The tea gardens depend for their labour almost entirely on
importation from Chota-Nagpur, the Central Provinces and Madias, and their
time-expired coolies form the most important factor in the colonisation of the
valley. The devastation caused by the Burmese in the early years of the
nineteenth century threw back into jungle large tracts of cultivation. The
people now styled Assamese, in addition to an unenterprising character which is
due to their enervating climate and the security of their crops, received a serious
reverse from the severe epidemic known as kala-azar, which has now practically
disappeared. The valley cries out for people to fill up its waste areas, and
though the progress of colonisation is hopeful, it will take many years to

remove the void. Of the cropped area 67 per cent, is under rice, 8 per cent,
under tea, and 2 per cent, under jute, while oil seeds cover 8 percent."*
From Amingaon the Eastern Bengal State Railway runs a ferry service
across the Brahmaputra — here a wide and tortuous river studded with little
islands — to Pandu, the terminus of the short line, from Pandu to Gauhati,
which links the Eastern Bengal State Railway with the Assam-Bengal Railway :
but at Pandu one has done with trains and takes to a motor car. Owing to the
good arrangements made by the Gauhati-Shillong Motor Transport Co., Ltd.,
the long road to Shillong, with its many twists and steep gradients which make
slow driving necessary, is covered in 6^ hours up and 5J hours down, and
luggage and servants follow in another car. t Without these cars the ascent
of over 60 miles must have been somewhat tedious, but is now one of the

Island Temple, Gauhati.

pleasantest experiences. Ascent, however, is not a correct term, for the
early part of the road is over level ground, and it is somewhat surprising to find,
after travelling, for about 16 miles from Pandu, that the car has not ascended
more than 200 feet. But for all that the plain presents several points of interest.

* Census of India, 191 1. Assam, by J. McSwiney, I.C.S.

t Motor cars for the carriage of passengers, luggage and gords run daily between
Pandughat, Gauhati and Shillong, in connection with the Eastern Bengal State Railway and
Assam-Bengal Railway Up and Down trains. The fare by what is called Service No. i (First
Class Passenger accelerated) is Rs. 22 from Pandughat to Shillong. The fare for a servant is
Rs. 10.
7

Gauhati (which, being interpreted, means "high land covered with
areca palms ") is on the banks of the Brahmaputra, a little to the east of
Pandu, and there a stop is made at the Motor Company's Office. There is time
therefore to see something of this place, which is not only situated in a very
beautiful setting, but is also of historical importance ; it is indeed identified
with the capital of a monarch mentioned in the Mahabharata, and in the 17th
century is said to have been taken and retaken eight times during the wars
between the Mahomedans and the Ahoms. That it was once a place of consi-

Between Pandu Ghat and Shillong.

derable dimensions and importance is testified to by the remains of ancient
buildings, and to this day it is the place to which pilgrims wend their way from
all parts of India. Two miles to the west is a temple, sacred to Sati, on a hill
overhanging the river. Tradition has it that this temple, Kamakhya, was
built by a Prince in the time of the Mahabharata, but it was rebuilt by Nar
Narayan in 1565 when the goddess received the sanguinary ofl"ering of 140
human heads. Within a day's march from Gauhati there lies at Hajo a
temple to Siva which both Buddhists and Hindus venerate and in which is
maintained a large staff of '' dancing " girls. Yet another holy place in the

Half-way House on the road to Shillong.

On the road to Shillong.

neighbourhood is Aswakranta, Opposite Gauhati, where the footprint of Krishna
is to be seen embedded in the rock. In another sense Gauhati has been
liberally endowed by the gods. The encircling amphitheatre of wooded hills on
one side and the majestic Brahmaputra — one of the most important as well as
one of the largest rivers in the world — on the other, make Gauhati a place ot
great beauty. And the view from it is typical of these great rivers at their
best, a rocky island in midstream being a fine addition to the landscape.

From Gauhati the road turns southward, leaving mythology and ancient
history behind, and makes for the purifying air of the hills. It soon enters the
District of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, which contains the two sub-divisions
known as Shillong and Jowai. It is a part of the world that presents to the
visitor one of those confusing administrative puzzles that are not uncommon in
India, for the Jaintia Hills, with Shillong and some villages in the Khasi

Garage of the Motor Transport Co,

Hills, are British territory ; but the rest of the Khasi Hills is included in 25
petty Native States. The country traversed by the road is for the most
part covered with dense evergreen forest, the haunt ot elephants, bison,
tigers, bears and other large game, and is intersected with a number of
streams. From these beautiful woods one emerges, at a higher altitude,
into more open plateau and hills covered with pine trees and into the
Shillong Sub-division which is, in effect, one high tableland. Shillong
town, the headquarters of the Government of Assam, has been a civil station
since 1864 and has now developed into one of the finest hill stations in all India.
It lies at an elevation of about 5,000 feet, . amongst the pine woods which clothe
the slopes of the Shillong peak. Immediately to the north and east of the station
are rolling grassy downs, while on the west a driving road mounts to the high

plateau of the Khasi Hills, which is nearly 6,000 feet, above sea-level. The
climate is temperate, the mean maximum temperature even at the hottest seasons
of the year being only 75° F., the "summer heat" of England. The average
monthly rainfall between May and September is 13^ inches, but most of this
rain is precipitated in the form of thunder showers and there are few days on
which there are not spells of brilliant sunshine.

Shillong, it is true, lacks the wonderful views ot the mountains that can
be obtained from Darjeeling, though in clear weather the distant snows can be
seen. But it makes up for this omission in other ways. It is a garden city

Typical View in Shillong.

with every garden full of the fragrance of English gardens, having, in addition,
the tropical glory of orchids in considerable variety : and at every turn of its
well-kept roads one is reminded by the scent of the pines, as well as by the
appearance of the country, of parts of Hampshire and Surrey. Yet, even in the
most beautiful hill stations, one cannot for ever be looking at the scenery, and
Shillong offers great attractions to the visitor of a kind not usually found in
the hills. There is a fine race course, a full sized polo ground, and a very
beautiful and sporting i8-hole golf course. There is a good cricket ground
and a smaller golf course suitable for beginners. Lawn tennis is played at the
Club and at private houses. The country in the neighbourhood consists of
rolling grassy downs interspersed with rice fields, pine woods, and low hills, and,
though too much broken up for hunting, it is admirably suited for paper-chasing
or for a morning gallop. 'I'here are excellent driving roads in the station and

Government House, Shillong.

Government House from the Lake, Shillong.

the neigfhbourhood, and, for the accommodation of those who are making only
a short stay, there are two or three boarding houses and a small, but well
designed and very comfortable, hotel — Morello's Hotel.

The most striking feature in Shillong is its architecture. Before 1897
most of the public offices and private houses were built of rough-hewn masonry,
but on June 12 of that year the station was reduced to a heap of ruins by one
of the most disastrous and widely-felt earthquakes on record. After the
earthquake new buildings were erected on what has been found in Japan to be
the most earthquake-proof principle. They rest on a wide, firm plinth, of brick

Government Offices, Shillong.

or concrete, but the superstructure in each case is designed with timber frame-
work to be as elastic and light as possible. Fortunately the earthquake occurred
at 5 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, when nearly every one was out of doors
and only two Europeans and 27 Indians were killed. Had it taken place at
night, there would have been few survivors. So tremendous was the shock
that it completely wrecked such places as Shillong and Goalpara, did serious
damage in Darjeeling, and was strong enough in Calcutta to injure nearly all
brick buildings. One authority, indeed, estimates that the shock was felt over
an area of 1,750,000 square miles. Early in June faint tremors had been felt
at Shillong, but the warnings of this great catastrophe were almost impercep-

The Club, Shillong.

On the Lake, Shillong.

tible. "At 5-15," wrote one observer at Shillong (who is quoted in Dr. Charles
Davison's ' A Study of Recent Earthquakes') " a deep rumbling sound, like near
thunder commenced, apparently coming from the south or southwest. . . .
The rumbling preceded the shock by about two seconds. . . . and the shock
reached its maximum violence almost at once, in the course of the first two or
three seconds. The ground began to rock violently, and in a few seconds it was
impossible to stand upright, and I had to sit down suddenly on the road.
The shock was of considerable duration, and maintained roughly the same
amount of violence from the beginning to the end. It produced a very distinct
sensation of sea sickness. The feeling was as if the ground was being violently
jerked backwards and forwards very rapidly, every third or fourth jerk being of
greater scope than the intermediate ones. The surface of the ground vibrated
visibly in every direction, as if it was made of soft jelly ; and long cracks appeared
at once along the road. The road is bounded here and there by low banks
of earth, about two feet high and these were all shaken down quite flat. The
school building, which was in sight, began to shake at the first shock, and large
slabs of plaster fell from the walls at once. A few moments afterwards the whole
building was lying flat, the walls collapsed, and the corrugated iron roof lying
bent and broken on the ground.' A pink cloud of plaster and dust was seen
hanging over every house in Shillong at the end of the shock. The whole of the
damage done was completed in the first ten or fifteen seconds of the shock."

Of the people inhabiting Shillong and the neighbourhood much has been
written. The Khasis, who form the principal tribes, are descendants of a great
Indo-Chinese race and speak a language unlike any other form of tribal speech
now found in Assam. They are a sturdy race, with faces of a Mongolian type,
keen traders and mighty archers. To the anthropologist they present many
points of interest, especially in connexion with their marriage and funeral
customs. Marriage with them according to the Gazetteer " is merely a union
of the sexes, dissoluble at will, and the people have no temptation to embark on
secret intrigues. A woman who commits adultery is moreover regarded with
extreme disfavour ; and according to the Khasi code of morals, there is only one
thing worse, and that is to marry in one's own clan." Their religion is ill-
defined and interwoven with superstitions of a peculiarly disgusting nature ; but
their innate radicalism has made them a progressive people and they are said
to be extremely receptive of Christianity. Some ten years ago there was a
"revival" in the Khasi and Jaintia hills, under the auspices of the Welsh
Calvinistic Methodist Mission, which was said to bear a striking resemblance
in many of its features, to the "revival" movement then proceeding in Wales
under the leadership of the evangelist Evan Roberts, Remarkable stories of
8

conversions on a large scale were published, and the census report just issued
by Mr. McSwiney shows that these stories were well-founded. The number
of Christians in the Khasi and Jaintia hills has almost doubled within the last
ten years, and now stands at 31,257. So far as the Province of Assam
generally is concerned, the growth of Christianity is said to have been less
than during the two previous decades, but even so it was at the rate of 85 per
cent. Most of the converts appear to have been won from the Animist
tribes, whose main desire, says the report, is " freedom from the terrors amidst
which they live."

A number of short excursions can be made from Shillong to one or
other of the numerous waterfalls in the neighbourhood, or to Shillong Peak
(6,445 feet), the highest point in the district, from which on a clear day a
magnificent view can be obtained. On the north the snowy peaks of the
Himalayas can be seen shutting in the valley of the Brahmaputra, on the
south the mountains of Hill Tippera stand up beyond the boundaries of the broad
district of Sylhet. According to Sir Joseph Hooker, a tract of country as
large as the whole of Ireland is occasionally visible, but such extended views
can only be obtained just after the cessation of the rains.

A longer excursion is to Cherrapunji {;i^ miles by road), a village which has
the curious but unenviable distinction of being the wettest place in Asia. At one
time it was the administrative headquarters of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, but
the rain drove the officials to Shillong leaving their bungalows to ruins. The
annual rainfall averages 458 inches, but in 1861 a total of 905 inches fell,
including 366 inches in July.

The explanation of this " demned, moist," unpleasant phenomenon is that
at Cherrapunji the hills rise straight from the plains, and the S. W. Monsoon
blowing across the flooded tracts of Eastern Bengal and Sylhet is suddenly
stopped by this barrier. The air, saturated with moisture, cools and is precipitated
as rain. The village is on a plateau overlooking the plains, bounded by
gorges on either side, and is thus completely surrounded by cooling vapour.
"The view from the eastern edge of the plateau is particularly striking.
The ravine terminates in a semi-circle of precipices, whose slopes, for a
considerable height above the river, are covered with brilliant herbage or dense
tree forest. Some five hundred feet below the summit, this natural glacis
ends, and an absolutely sheer wall of rock, as smooth and perpendicular as
though chiselled by the hand of the most careful mason, shuts in the valley on
this side. Lower down, the ravine is joined by other gorges, all of which have
been carved out of the limestone rock by the rivers hurrying towards the

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K
W

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o
o

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PL,"

plains, and the view is bounded by ridge upon ridge, whose precipitous slopes
are clothed with luxuriant vegetation. The roar of the torrent rises from its
bed several thousand feet below, like the distant thunder of surf upon the coast,
and, perhaps, is most effective when the valleys are filled with mist, and there
is nothing but the distant voice of the waters to tell of the depths beneath.
To the south the eye travels for mile upon mile over the levels of Sylhet.
The cliff rises sheer, 4,000 feet and more, from the plain, and there are no
outlying ranges of lower hills to soften the transition from the mountain to
the valley. On a clear day in July the spectacle is sufficiently bizarre. The
whole surface of the plain seems one broad lake, dotted over with clumps of

Brahmo-Samaj Church, Cooch Behar.

trees, and it is almost impossible to realize that this inland sea is in reality
a densely peopled district." *

Those who make the journey to Shillong have the opportunity en route of
visiting, if only for a short time, the Feudatory State of Cooch Behar. It lies
somewhat off the tourist track on a line branching off from the E.B.S.R.
at Gitaldaha. Probably most visitors to this small but prosperous State go
there to enjoy the sport which the hospitable Maharajah offers to his friends.
A few tracts are maintained as shooting reserves, but these consist mainly of
grass jungle, and there is no real forest. The big game with which the State

* This description is taken from a small guide-hook to Shillong, illustrated with maps,
published by the Government of Assam at the office of the Director of Surveys, Shillong.

formerly abounded has receded northwards before the advance of cultivation,
and vv^ithin its limits the only vi^ild animals now found are leopards, bears,

deer, and hog : of small game,
florican and francolin are plenti-
ful in some of the grassy plains.
The town itself is well laid
out, the principal building being
the Maharajah's palace, which
stands in fine park-like grounds,
and the Courts, Dewan's resi-
dence, and other public build-
ings which are grouped round
an artificial sheet of water.

In Cooch Behae.

The State itself has an area
of 1,307 square miles and is a
low-lying plain intersected by
several large rivers. It once formed part of the ancient kingdom of Kamarupa
and tradition and authentic facts together make up for it a history of imposing

Cooch Behar Entrance to the Maharajah's Palace.

w
ffl

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o
o
o

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O

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u

length. The attention of the East India Company was first directed towards
It at the end of the eighteenth century when the succession was in dispute, and a
treaty was then drawn up between the Rajah of Cooch Behar and the
Company, by which the former acknowledged subjection to the East India

Company, and consented
to his country being
annexed to the Province
of Bengal. This right of
annexation was, how-
ever, eventually waived
by the Government. In
subsequent clauses the
Raja promised to make
over one-half of his annual
revenues, according to an
assessment to be made
by the Company. This
In the Woods near Jainti. moiety was permanently

fixed in 1780 at Rs. 67,700. Fresh domestic dissensions soon reduced the
administration to a deplorable condition, and in 1788 a Commission of two
Civil Servants was nominated to enquire into the state of the country.
The Commissioners concluded their report by recommending the appointment
of a Resident or Commissioner at the
town of Cooch Behar. This office sub-
sequently became merged in that of
Governor-General's Agent for the North- ^^

East Frontier.

The present Maharajah was born
in April 1882 and educated at the Mayo
College and at Eton and Oxford. His
father, the late Maharajah, married the
eldest daughter of the great religious
reformer Keshab Chandra Sen and the
Brahmo Samaj Church now forms a

landmark in Cooch Behar town. It was '" ™^ J^'^" ■^°°°^-

the late Maharajah who was responsible for the introduction of the railway into
his territory, and the Cooch Behar State Railway (originally 2' 6" gauge but
converted to metre-gauge in 1910) runs from Gitaldaha junction, where it
connects with the Eastern Bengal State Railway system, through picturesque

Loading Timber into Trucks at Jainti.

View from Jainti looking towards the Bhutan Hills.

forest country to Jainti, at the foot of the Bhutan hills ; its total length is
53^ miles, of which 33^ lie within the State. The Eastern Bengal State Railway
line from Mogal Hat to Dhubri runs through the south-east of the State for a
distance of 12 miles, and on the west the northern section of the line runs for a
distance of 5I miles. A short section (2| miles) of the Bengal-Duar Railway
from Barnes Ghat to Lalmanir Hat also lies within the State. These three lines
are all on the rnetre-gauge.

Chapter VI. — Plassey and Murshidabad.

r is only within recent years that one of the most interesting
districts, from the historical point of view, has been brought
.M^ within easy reach of Calcutta. Until the construction of the
^-^ broad-gauge branch on the Eastern Bengal State Railway
from Ranaghat to Lalgolaghat, Murshidabad was comparatively
inaccessible, and few persons went out of their way to see its historical
monuments and the neighbouring battlefield of Plassey.* This branch,
97 miles in length, was opened in 1905-07 and besides tapping an important
trade district has made it easy to visit various places that once played a great
part in the history of India.

On the battlefield of Plassey on the left bank of the river Bhagirathi,
which is close to the railway station ot Plassey, not many of the original land-
marks survive. The historical mango grove, in which Clive's force encamped
on the eve of the fight, has been washed away by the river. It was 800 yards
long and 300 yards broad and surrounded by an earthern bank and ditch, and
close to it stood a hunting-box belonging to the Nawab of Bengal, surrounded
by a masonry wall. The disappearance of these two land^marks and the changed
course of the river make it anything but easy to reconstruct the scene of the
battle. Nor is there much to remind the visitor that he stands on ground that
the British should regard as hallowed. A monument has been erected,
bearing the inscription :

PLASSEY.

Erected by the Bengal Government, 1883.

And the visitor may be asked to buy at a high price small objects,
such as spoons, made from the wood of the last of the famous mango trees ;
but he will do well to remember that the district is famous for its mangoes and
that the supply of mango wood is unlimited.

Clive's famous victory can be described in a few words. After the
capture of Calcutta by Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab ot Bengal, in June 1756,

* The name is said to be a corruption of Palas, the scarlet-flowered Flame of the
Forest, botanically known as Butea Frondosa.

Clive was despatched with reinforcements from Madras to re-establish the
British factories in Bengal, and he recaptured Calcutta in January 1757. After
prolonged negotiations he succeeded in gaining over Mir Jafar, the Nawab's
general, whom he promised to install as Nawab in place of Siraj-ud-daula. In
March Chandernagorewas taken from the French and on June 13th a fresh advance
was made; Katwa was captured on the i8th, and on the 22nd, after consi-
derable hesitation and changing of plans, the troops marched to Plassey, where
Siraj-ud-daula was encamped with an army of 50,000 foot, 18,000 horse and 50
pieces of cannon, mostly 24 pounders and 32 pounders drawn by bullocks. To
oppose this army Clive had a force of 900 Europeans, of whom 100 were artillery-
men and 50 sailors, 100 topasses or Portuguese half-castes, and 2,100 sepoys;
the artillery consisted of 8 six-pounders and 2 howitzers. Clive encamped in the
mango grove which has already been described, and the enemy were entrenched
on the river bank to the north of him. At daybreak on the 23rd the enemy,
headed by a small body of Frenchmen, advanced to the attack, enveloping his
right, Mir Jafar, who had so far proved faithless, being on the extreme left of
the line. Clive kept most of his men under shelter, and during the morning
withdrew his whole force into the grove only hoping to be able to make a
" successful attack at night." A heavy fall of rain about noon drenched the
Nawab's ammunition and almost checked his cannonade. The Nawab's most
faithful general, supposing that Clive's gunners had also suffered from the rain,
led a cavalry charge against the grove and was killed by a cannon ball. Another
general, a member of the conspiracy, was working on the fears of the
Nawab who in an evil
moment for his cause
withdrew his men into
their entrenched camp.
Clive advanced to the
attack, stormed the camp,
and routed the army. The
Nawab fled on a camel to
Murshidabad with a body-
guard of 2,000 horse-
men. In the panic which
followed the departure of
that potentate, the 40 or
50 French artillerymen,
under M. St. Frais, alone
held their ground before

Clivfe's advance. The Photo by Boume & shepherd.

Monument on the Field of Plassey.

rest of the Nawab's host followed their master Mir Jafar's cavalry, which had
hovered undecided during the battle, and had been repeatedly fired on by
Clive "to make them keep their distance" joined dive's camp. A great
victory had been won, the road to Murshidabad lay open, the Black Hole had
been partly Avenged, and from the day of that hard-fought fight dates in reality
the beginning of the British Empire in the East.

When Clive entered Murshidabad after the battle ot Plassey he wrote :
" This city is as extensive, populous and rich as the city of London, with this
difference, that there are individuals in the first possessing infinitely greater
property than in the last city." If this was a true description the town had
rapidly attained to its state of prosperity. It was founded by Akbar and to
it, in 1704, the Nawab Murshid Kuli Khan moved his seat of Government

Photo by Bourne & Shepherd.

The Nizamut Imamtarah, Murshidabad.

from Dacca and gave the town his name. As ruler succeeded ruler each, in true
Eastern fashion, built for himself a palace, and as the city never suffered from the
domestic or foreign wars which raged in its neighbourhood it became of consider-
able dignity and beauty. Even after the conquest of Bengal by the British,
Murshidabad remained tor some time the seat of administration and it was not
until 1790 that the entire revenue and judicial staff were fixed in Calcutta.
The Murshidabad Mint was abolished nine years later ; but the Bengal Govern-
ment which had for some nme discontinued that Mint still inscribed its Sicca
rupees coined in Calcutta with a Persian legend to the effect that they had
been coined in Murshidabad in the 19th year of the fortunate reign of Shah
Alam ! With the loss of its political importance, the size and population ot
Murshidabad naturally declined. To-day but few vestiges remain of its former
greatness, and the title of the present descendant of the once independent rulers

of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa is simply that of Nawab Bahadur of Murshidabad.
Of many parts of the town one can truthfully say —

There is a palace, and the ruined wall

Divides the sand, a very home of tears,

And where love whispered of a thousand years
The silken-footed caterpillars crawl.

And where the Prince commanded, now the shriek

Of wind is flying through the court of state :

" Here," it proclaims, " there dwelt a potentate
Who could not hear the sobbing of the weak."

The chief object of attraction is the Nawab's palace on the banks ot the
Bhagirathi, a fine building in the Italian style designed, as an inscription says,
" by Colonel Duncan McLeod, of the Bengal Corps of Engineers and executed
entirely by natives under his sole superintendence." Local enthusiasm claims
for the palace that it has "more points of interest than probably any other secular
building in India*." If one does not concur in that judgment, one can at least
admire this "house of one thousand doors," and especially the fine proportions
of the Durbar room and the Banqueting Hall. It contains many old pictures,
including one of King William IV presented by His Majesty to a former
Nawab, costly jewellery, china and arms.

The Imambara (house of prayer), which was built directly in front of the
northern principal door in the year 1847, is a fine structure, on the site of a more
celebrated building erected by Siraj-ud-daula, which was accidentally burnt down
in 1840.

About i^ miles to the east of the palace is the Topkhana, the site of the
artillery park of the Nawab Nazim, and the east entrance to the old city. Here
is a large gun, 17^ feet long with a girth of 5 feet at the breech, weighing 2^
tons, which was made at Dacca during the reign of Shah Jahan. The gun
is now embedded in a pipal-tree, which has lifted it many feet above the ground.
One and a half miles south-east of the palace is the Motijhil ("pearl lake"),
built in an old bed of the Bhagirathi, in the shape of a horseshoe. Motijhil was
taken by Siraj-ud-daula in 1756, and it was from here that he marched for the
battle of Plassey. Lord Clive stayed at Motijhil in 1765 to negotiate the
transfer of the Diwani to the Company, and again in 1766, when the first
English revenue collection was held here. Motijhil was also the residence of
Warren Hastings when he became Political Resident at the court of Murshidabad,
and of Sir John Shore in a similar capacity.

* "The Musnud of Murshidabad ; " by Purna C. Majumdar. (Murshidabad, 1905.)

65
A mosque at Katra to the north-east of Motijhil about ij miles from the
town of Murshidabad, contains the mausoleum of Murshid Kuli Khan. This
was for a long time the chief mosque in the city, and was a place of pilgrimage
for devout Mahomedans, Murshid Kuli Khan being regarded as a saint.
Jafarganj, situated at a distance of about a mile from the palace at Murshi-
dabad, contains the old residence of Mir Jatar when he was commander-in-chief.
His audience hall, since turned into an Imambara, and his dwelling house still
exist. Here the last secret conference before the battle of Plassey took place
between him and Mr. Watts, the chief factor at Kasimbazar, who entered the

^^- -i^^j

Ruins of departed Glory.

Photo by Bourne & Shepherd.

house in a palanquin as a. pardanis/iin woman. It is said that Siraj-ud-daula
was murdered here.

About 2 miles north of the city ot Murshidabad is Mahimapur, once the
residence of the famous banker Jagat Seth. Here Watts and Walsh met Mir
Jafar and Raja Rai Durlabh, three days after the battle of Plassey, and conferred
concerning payment of the amounts stipulated for by them before the battle was
fought. A portion of the house has been washed away by the river ; the old
place of worship, however, and some ruins remain to this day.

On the right bank of the river opposite Motijhil is the Khushbagh
("the garden of Happiness"), the old cemetery of AliVardi Khan, Siraj-ud-daula,
and their family. It consists of three walled enclosures in the centre of which
is the principal cemetery, containing the tombs of Ali Vardi Khan and Siraj-
ud-daula. The grounds are laid out as gardens with hedges bordering the
walks, and contain many fine trees. On the same side of the river, opposite
Jafarganj, are the pleasure grounds of Hirajhil ("lake of diamonds"), and
the palace at Mansurganj constructed by Siraj-ud-daula before he became
Nawab. It was at Mansurganj palace that Clive seated Mir Jafar on the masnad
of Bengal after the battle of Plassey. Near this was the palace of Muradbagh,
where Clive stayed on his entrance into the city after the battle. Only a portion

^^*

Photo by Bourne & Shepherd.

Old Gate : Murshidabad.

ot the toundation remains and the greater portion of the Hirajhil has been cut
away by the Bhagirathi. Also on the same side of the river is the Roshnibagh
consisting of beautiful gardens containing a mausoleum.

Just south of Murshidabad is Kasimbazar, where in the 17th century, the
East India Company had a fortified factory. There Warren Hastings spent
his early years and married the wife of Captain John Buchanan. She died in
1759 and was buried with her daughter Elizabeth in the cemetery close by.
All traces of the old factory and of the Agent's residence have, however,
disappeared, except a small mound containing part of the foundations.

The industries of Murshidabad are much what one would expect to be
fostered by a native court, though it is surprising to find in the district a series
of lakes, marking the line of an old river, from which seed pearls are obtained.
The city was once famous for its ivory carvers, and to this day this curious
art is practised there by a few men who have inherited the traditional skill
of their predecessors. But the real industry of the district is the manufacture
of that silk in which, from their first arrival in the country, the servants of the
East India Company used to trade, their efforts being stimulated by competition

Jafeaganj Cemetery, Murshidabad.

Photo by Bourne &'Shepherd.

with the French, Dutch, and Armenians. Bengal early became intimately
associated with the endeavours of the East India Company to organise a
mulberry silk supply for England intended to take the place of the silk procured
through the Levant Company from Turkey. Kasimbazar— the Company's
Indian factory in Bengal— was thus temporarily raised to a position of consider-
able commercial importance, which it lost as rapidly with the subsequent
decline in the Bengal traffic, due to the remarkable success of the Italian and
French endeavours to rear the silk worm. Tavernier wrote of Kasimbazar in

The Battle of Plassey.

the 7th century that it furnished 20,000 bales annually, each weighing 100
livres. But the silk carried from Kasimbazar by both the Dutch and English
merchants was of the coarse kind known as "country wound " and was suited
for but few of the English goods even then produced. This circumstance led
to strenuous efforts to improve both the quality of the silk and the nature of
reeling, with the result that a large industry rapidly developed in what was known
as korah silks. The winding of silk is still carried on, but it has steadijy
declined since the Company closed their factory at Jangipur in 1835. The decline
is due in a great measure to diseases of the worms, which the Bengal Silk
Association, constituted in 1898, is now laking steps to combat. There is a
nursery at Chandanpur which distributes large quantities of selected seed to
the rearers ; similar nurseries are being built elsewhere, and the use of
examined seed is spreading in the Government estates west of the Bhagirathi.

Silk is still largely manufactured in the head-quarters and a great
variety of fabrics are manufactured. At the present day the Bengal silk
manufactures of most importance are the steam power factory at Ultadanga,
near Calcutta. Mr. N. G. Mukerji gives an interesting review of the silk industry
of the Murshidabad district in the Indian Art Journal. He there writes
"what is commonly, and everywhere, known as ' Berhampore Silk ' is manufac-
tured in four different centres. These are : Baluchar, Mirzapur, Khagra
and Islampur — all in the district of Murshidabad. Besides these four principal
centres there are hundreds of villages throughout the district where pierced
cocoons are employed for obtaining a coarse thread used in making matkas,
of which the trade is very extensive." The, mat ka textiles are in much demand
by the Jains and other communities who object to taking life in order either to
procure food or dress.

Appendix.

As explained in Chapter I, the system now known as the Eastern
Bengal State Railway has grown out of a number of small companies which
have gradually been amalgamated into one. The line as originally con-
structed consisted of : —

The Northern Bengal State Railway, from Sara to Siliguri, with
branches from Parbatipur to Kaunia on the east, and
Dinagepur on the west (metre-gauge), and from Poradaha to
Damukdia (standard-gauge). These were opened during the
years 1877 to 1884.

The Kaunia-Dharla Railway, from Teesta Junction to Jatrapur and
Mogalhat (2ft. 6in. gauge), opened during the years 1881 to
1884.

The Dacca State Railway, from Narainganj to Mymensingh (metre-
gauge), opened in 1885.

The line from Calcutta to Port Canning (standard-gauge, 28 miles),
which was the property of the Calcutta and South Eastern Railway Company
and was built in 1862-63, was purchased by the State on ist April 1868.

On 1st July 1884 the Eastern Bengal Railway, which ran from Calcutta
to Rajbari on the standard-gauge and was opened during 1862 to 1871, was acquired
by the State from the late guaranteed Eastern Bengal Railway Coy., and on thp
same date the Poradaha Branch (standard-gauge portion) of the Northern Bengal
State Railway was permanently amalgamated with the Eastern Bengal Railway.
On ist April 1887, the metre-gauge portion of the Northern Bengal State
Railway, the Kaunia-Dharla Railway and the Dacca Railways were amalgamated
with the Eastern Bengal Railway and the Calcutta and South Eastern Railway,
and the whole became the Eastern Bengal State Railway.

Other lines built by private Companies were also taken over at various
times, namely : —

The Bengal Central Railway (standard-gauge, 127 miles) from Dum
Dum Junction to Khoolna and Ranaghat to Bongong, with a
short branch from Dum Dum Cantonment to Pattipuker,
opened in 1882 to 1884 and 1904 respectively, taken over from
ist July 1905.

The Brahmaputra-Sultanpur Branch Railway (metre-gauge, 59
miles) from Santahar Junction to Fulchhari built in 1899 and 1900
and taken over from ist April 1904.

The Ranaghat-Krishnagar Light Railway (2ft. 6in. gauge, 20
miles) from Aistalaghat to Krishnagar built in 1899, and taken
over from ist July 1904.

The following are the principal extensions made in recent years : —

(i) The Murshidabad branch, 97 miles, standard-gauge, from
Ranaghat to Lalgolaghat, opened in 1905-07.

(2) The Godagari-Katihar line, 105 miles, metre-gauge, in
extension of the above, opened in 1909.

(3) The Gauhati Extension, 147 miles, metre-gauge, from Golak-
ganj Junction to Gauhati, crossing the Brahmaputra by a ferry
between Amingaon and Pandu, opened in 1906- 191 o.

(4) The Kaunia-Bonarpara Extension, 44 miles, metre-gauge, from
Bonarpara Junction to Kaunia Junction, opened in 1905.

The Eastern Bengal State Railway also works the following privately
owned lines : —

(i) The Cooch Behar State Railway, S3 miles long. This Une was'
originally opened, on the 2ft. 6in. gauge, in 1893 and 1898, and
was converted to metre-gauge in 1910.

(2) The Mymensingh-Juggannathganj Railway, 55 miles, metre-
gauge, opened in 1898-99. This line is worked as part of the
Dacca Section.

The rolling stock in use consists at present of the following
Number of Engines

Number of Carriages

Number of Wagons

Number of Passengers carried in 1912

Goods carried in 1912

The Staff consists of —

Officers

Subordinate Staff ...

j S. G. 246

■ M. G. 229

2ft. 6in. 5

S. G. 751
M. G. 804
2ft. 6in. 56

S. G. 5328
M. G. 4324
2ft. 6in. 93

31,748,100
3,667,166 tons

130

Europeans, 423
lurasians, 561

. Indians, 37, 117

Printed by E. G. Pearson for the Proprietors of the Times Press, Bombay, and published by Col. C. A. R. Browne, Agent, E. B. S. Ry.— 23i9'i3.

REVISED ROUTE MAP ()E THE. E.ASTERN BENGAL STATE RAILWAY

SYSTliM & CONNI'CTE.I) STE.AME.R SERVICES.

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LITHO THACKER, SPINK A CO .CALCUTTA

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